After a good long while of dwelling on whether to drop another 400 or so on a new pair of headphones, or upgrading something else, I settled on an E10, a DAC/amp combination device that serves to replace my PC’s internal sound card. It replaces a Realtek ALC887 (desktop), and a Realtek ALC269 (notebook), both of which are integrated/onboard sound chips.
(Updated 02 January 2011, added thoughts)
Having finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution at last, I found some nice thought-provoking concepts in the game that I think mirrors real world. In fact, a few such thoughts were portrayed in the 2009 film Surrogates. Issues regarding the boundary between human-technology integration, ethicality of actions done through a non-sentient being and so forth. DEHR allows you some form of choice in the way some things are accomplished, although unlike Dragon Age (1) and both Mass Effect games (All 3 from Bioware), you don’t really alter the course of the game that drastically. Instead, you get to choose, at the end of the game, what ending you want, regardless of your stance(s) throughout the game. Kind of pointless to do it this way, oh well.
I’ve thrown together transcripts of Adam Jensen’s monologues after each ending (presumably to justify his course of action), and my own thoughts on the matter (Pending). If you have not finished the game, spoilers ensue. If you proceed with reading after the pagebreak…well, you were warned.
After getting some 40 hours of use on these pair of ‘phones, here’s the updated impression:
Bass: The bass seems to have evened out, not so in-your-face, but still very much felt and heard. It seems to have ‘moved back’ a little, almost like they traded an up-front spot for something more wide-sweeping. Positive change for me.
Mid-frequency: Not much noticeable change, maybe due to a lack of in-depth EQing.
Treble: Again, not much in the way of noticeable change, but the ‘sharp’ feeling seems to have lessened, to the benefit of clarity. Still undecided on the soundstage for this.
Comfort: I’m beginning to notice a slight tendency for the earcups to press on the rear of my earlobes. Not to the point of being uncomfortable, but it warrants occasional adjustment, especially if you’re prone to sweating. It gets a little warm in the ears after a while of extended listening (3+ hours continuous usage will definitely see this occur; over an hour of you’re in a warm area). The ATH-M50 stock earpads are definitely better in this sense. Clamping force is lessened (due to extended wearing), but doesn’t compromise in terms of isolation. I attribute this to the close fit of the earcups.
External noise/sound isolation: Without music through, they still leak a tiny bit of sound in, but otherwise unchanged from the first impressions.
Portability: They’re excellent in this respect. Folds up nicely, doesn’t feel like they’d break or loosen due to repeated transportation and folding.
Final comments: Very much satisfied with ‘em, price and all. Next in line, looking at a pair of Shure SRH440. Auditioned them a while ago, but since I lacked a serious pair of ‘phones to compare them to, I couldn’t tell if they were really good. I’ll be hauling the M35 to my next pre-purchase audition session, for a good side-by-side comparison with familiar tracks. Easier to tell ‘em apart this way.
Got a malware warning today, as I loaded my own page. Not sure how that happened, but since the warning I’ve:
Hopefully this got rid of any potential malware. I had previously removed some nasty redirects (also not sure how those got there), maybe this is fallout from that.